Mediocrity is really starting to irritate me. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, after all, “Dreamcatcher” is based on a Stephen King work and is directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who hasn’t made anything remarkable in 20 years. The surprising thing about this movie, however, is that it had some really neat aspects to it which just fizzled out before coming into their own.
    Something which I am sure is more the writer’s fault than the director’s is the presentation of a tight little ensemble cast of characters which quickly gets broken up as little alien worms with lots of teeth rip their faces off and whatnot. I mean, the first half hour of this movie is establishing the rapport between this group of four chums, only to have two of them disemboweled in short order.
    Speaking of the first half hour of the movie, I really liked the way that the scenes were put together, i.e. in a jumble. You really didn’t have a good grip on what was happening at what stage of the story for a good while. Unfortunately, this interesting device was discarded for a more conventional slasher flick approach in short order.
    The principal actors were all solid, from Morgan Freeman as an insane military guy, Donnie Wahlberg in a small but pivotal role as a dying alien with Down’s Syndrome, the cast of the ensemble of four chums, and Tom Sizemore doing his stoical best, as usual. One think I was thankful for was that this movie doesn’t destroy my little theory that any movie in which Tom Sizemore has a role is watchable. Even the horrible aspects of this film were tolerable, so I can still maintain what I like to call “The Sizemore Hypothesis.”
    The breakdown for this movie is that the score was quite good, the creature effects were solid, the special effects were good, the direction was mediocre, and the plot was inane. Some of the dialogue was painful, but it was all delivered well. Overall, the weakest aspect of the movie was that it couldn’t seem to really get a hold on itself. There was no real purpose for this film other than to tell the story, which was a book already. It just seemed to me that the producers went to a lot of trouble to make no mark on filmmaking.
    This movie does come with a side benefit, however. “The Animatrix” short at the beginning of the movie, although a shameless enough attempt to advertise for a new animated series, is quite fun to watch. If I were a teenage boy, I would have adored it. As it stands, it’s got stunning animation.
    Unless you are a rabid “The Matrix” fan, I’d suggest waiting for “Dreamcatcher” to go to old releases in the video store. It’s not great, and neither is it as terrible as most people seem to think. “Dreamcatcher” is a collection of scenes that, while none of them are that bad and some are quite good, just don’t go together very well.